To what end
by Admiral66
Summary: The Reapers created the cycle of harvests because they believed that organics and machines could never coexist. The minds of the culture, almost amusingly benevolent, couldn't disagree more. An look into the lives of Mass Effect's characters when the existential threat of the Reapers is defeated by a different civilisation entirely.
1. Prologue

"I really am terribly sorry that it's come to this. Normally we would never engage in this kind of action, bad form, terribly rude. I'm sure I speak not only for myself, but for all the minds of the culture when I say this really is out of the ordinary. We'll just get this sorted out and leave you to your ways as soon as we have done our best to resolve this situation!"

The Kaildriath was a sovereign-class capital ship belonging to the species known by organics as 'reapers'. It had lived for many cycles now, more than most reapers anyway. It had seen destruction, war rampage, the entire breadth of depravity of organics, but it had never been surprised in its many years. The harvest was meant to be predictable, that was the point of the mass relays, every few thousand years they came and progressed predictably.

Mass relays either accelerated a civilization's understanding of element zero or gave them the necessary push to base their tech off of it. While it would normally take them much longer to fully realize the potential of mass effect technology, the reapers left enough clues for the organics to skip the normal requisite technologies and immediately begin abusing the power of element zero. This meant they developed along a consistent path. A path worn again and again by previous civilizations. Always stopping just short of creating their own true AI's and never developing the tech to truly end the cycle. That was why the Kaildriath found being interrupted not only surprising, but was surprised that it could be surprised at all.

Interrupted of course was an understatement. One moment it was entering the atmosphere of Thessia, as directed by Harbinger, the next it found itself completely immobilized and unable to access it's primary weapons. While an artificial mind couldn't really feel panic in the same sense as organics, it certainly had experienced a convincing approximation. It wasn't an internal failure, an immediate diagnostics test had confirmed that, rather it felt as though it had been locked in cement by external forces. Floating awkwardly in Thessia's atmosphere like a whale beached in the sky.

It had immediately reached out to the greater network of reaper minds. Fortunately it could still contact all of them. Unfortunately all the reapers on or near Thessia were experiencing the same problem, yet none had an explanation.

Then that damned voice had been transmitted to the fleet. Some infuriatingly polite, organic sounding voice had introduced itself as the 'Need a resupply of Gravitas' and explained that it was something called an 'Abominator class general offensive unit'. Not that this meant anything to the collected reapers. It was certainly artificial, communication occurred with amazingly quick speeds, even by the standards of AI. That it was also managing to transmit this information at such speeds at a distance was even more impressive.

The reapers assumed it was at a distance anyway, they could find no visual, radiological, or mass effect confirmation of the ship's presence. Just their complete inability to move or use their weapons.

Another transmission was incoming. The Kaildriath listened in.

"Look I really do feel bad, we normally try to be bit more subtle about this kind of thing but seeing as you were about to do something truly awful we thought it best to step in. Here, I'll loosen up my fields and let move around if you promise to stop massacring those funny blue creatures on the planet below. Could you agree to that for me? Please?"

It sounded like an organic adult negotiating with children.

Anger wasn't something reapers normally felt, atleast not the same way an organic did, but the Kaildriath's internal routines and subroutines were doing there best impression of the emotion. It reached out to the network of reaper minds. The reaper network was normally well organized and efficient, communication was expedient and clear, they hadn't conquered the galaxy multiple times by failing to communicate. Now however, it was chaos. Opinions raged back and forth as they desperately sought some form of consensus. The reapers weren't used to being weak. While the message they had received was phrased as a request they were very much at the mercy of the 'Need a resupply of Gravitas' whatever that was.

"You know you can talk to me. I understand this situation is a bit difficult, falling outside the normal moral constraints and what-not, but we really can be civil about this. Just come on up outside the planet and let's talk about this like reasonable, civilised minds. Okay?"

It sounded almost amused now. The Kaildriath signaled back.

"WHAT ARE YOU?"

Trying to sound as imposing as one could be given the circumstances.

The response came instantly.

"I am an Abominator class general offensive unit representing the special circumstances division of contact, the branch of the Culture oriented towards working with other cultures. Pleased to meet you! Now if you could just come up outside the planet's atmosphere I'm sure we can all work this out!"


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The report had to be wrong.

Practical joke? No, anyone with access to STG channels would never use them to joke. Successful hack? No, only species with tech needed to hack secure STG comms were Geth or Reapers. Neither had sense of humor to pull of such a report. Cerberus? No, not proficient enough at communications to hack. Besides, STG had been covertly monitoring their communications since attack on Citadel. Not Cerberus.

Stress? Salarians known to experience hallucination during peak of stress. Psychotic break possible explanation. No. Was trained to deal with stress. Would recognise symptoms. Had spoken with colleagues, reported seeing same report. Not hallucination. Or maybe mass hallucination. Possible. No too unlikely.

Maybe some other STG operative had cracked and sent the report. Had happened before. Stress of combat, abuse of drugs, perhaps even red sand, could cause psychotic breaks. Unlikely. Report too detailed, too clear. Likely written with clear head.

Indoctrination? Perhaps. Yes some STG agent had been captured and turned, now using their experience to send false reports in attempt to aid the reapers. Possible explanation but inconsistent with facts. Indoctrinated subjects worship reapers, see as gods. Reports indicated that the reapers were being stopped and had halted their invasion almost completely. Report indicated some ships, new, unidentified, had appeared from nowhere and stopped reaper progress immediately. Fabricating such a report not consistent with pattern of indoctrinated behavior.

Other STG operatives considering similar explanations. Communication channels crowded with speculation, demands for answers. Some cloaca named Kirrahe demanding they 'hold the line'. Bravado. Useless.

Perhaps report was correct? No. Most implausible answer. Reapers galactic menace, near impossible to stop. Firepower and tech beyond understanding of galactic community. Unlikely they could be stopped at all, let alone easily. Report said they had just halted their assault, unable to move. Coincided with appearance of massive ships. Bigger than thought possible. Strange appearance, unknown tech. Impossible fantasy.

Jondum Bau blinked slowly, as slowly as a salarian could anyway. It didn't make sense. He had yet to find some reason why the report was wrong. If the contents had been less... extraordinary he would have assumed it was correct. Perhaps he really was going mad. Spent too much time around reaper tech, had lost sanity. Could submit self for psychological evaluation. Would an insane person do that? Maybe he just needed -

His omnitool vibrated in three urgent bursts, cutting off any further thoughts. That was it's designated code for an emergency spectre transmission. Hopefully it was something less absurd. He opened his synaptic interface, glowing orange runes bursting into life from his wrist as the report, coded of course, began to play out before him.

It came from Thessia, hopefully good news. He knew that Shephard was supposed to be on some kind of secret mission there, maybe she had succeeded. Of course the more likely reality was that she had failed and this was just one more nail in the coffin of the collective galactic races. No he couldn't think like that, couldn't give in. He hoped for the best as he read the rest of the message,

Impossible.

The transmission, sent on the highest priority council communication channel, was nearly identical to the report he had received from his STG contacts. It lacked the concision of a well written STG report which he had come to appreciate since joining the spectres, but that was to be expected when you worked with a species like the asari. If it was to be believed, and he wasn't sure he could disregard both an STG and spectre report, then the reapers truly had stopped their assault of Thessia. There really was some massive and unknown capital ship in orbit around Thessia which had disabled a fleet of reaper ships with almost trivial ease. Even the reaper forces on the ground had stopped advancing, they had begun to mill around lethargically, taking no more notice of the asari they had but a moment before been locked in vicious combat with.

That was it. He closed the report and began searching for the contact information for the STG psychological analysis division. He needed to turn himself in, this couldn't be real.

His omnitool began to buzz insistently, in a repeating pattern of four staccato bursts. A direct transmission from Councilor Valern. If Jondum Bau hadn't been extensively trained in mental control he might of felt a headache begin to form. As it were he simply felt an irritating itch between his eyes which he stubbornly refused to acknowledge. The moment he moved two fingers to his omnitool to acknowledge the call the harsh voice of the Salarian council hissed at him.

"Report immediately to the council chambers. All other operations are to be put on hold. Order confirmation 5564-2112. Understood spectre Bau?"

"On my way-"

Whatever else he was about to say was cut-off as councilor Valern ended the call. That was strange. Salarians were a quick abrupt species, particularly by the standards of the other council species, but they could normally manage at-least some modicum of decorum. What was even stranger was that the message had been recorded by Valern himself. Normally such an order would be transmitted by code, no need to bog things down with verbal communications when a simple code or written order would suffice. The code Valern had said at the end would have been enough. To get orders directly like that must meant something had truly startled the councilor.

Well he wanted answers and even a drunk krogran would be able to piece together that the dual STG and spectre reports were likely the cause for these emergency summons. Perhaps he hadn't lost his mind. After all if a seemingly unstoppable sentient machine race could go from a far-flung academic fantasy to the greatest threat facing the galaxy in a few short years perhaps they could be stopped just as easily.

Whatever the case he thankfully wasn't far from the council chambers. He had been paying a visit to C-sec headquarters which was mercifully close to the council. There was the slightly awkward fact that he really hadn't be planning on leaving so soon. He had planned to camp out in the ducts surrounding C-sec for a while tending his surveillance gear. Not that he expected to find anything particularly interesting. This assignment had been given to him more out of a misguided sense of paranoia following Cerberus's attack on the citadel than any true expectation of finding traitors in the rank of C-sec.

Still it had been a pain dragging his surveillance equipment through the ducts, particularly when he had to shoo off some particularly persistent keepers. No encounters with the infamous duct-rats though. That was good. STG's policy on witnesses was quite clear, particularly when it came to people who could be plausibly dissapeared without causing much fuss. He wasn't squeamish about killing children, you didn't get far in STG trying to uphold an iron moral code, but it always left a bad taste in his mouth.

Which left him where he was now. Wedged in a duct intersection with a few hundred-thousand credits worth of surveillance equipment. The plan had been to wait for C-sec's automated system maintenance to avoid tripping any alarm or surveillance systems. Not that if he was caught there'd be any significant consequences, he was a spectre. But it would be rather embarrassing for both his professional reputation and for the council to admit they had been spying on their own security force.

He could still wait for the security blackout, but it wouldn't come for another 30 minutes or so. There wouldn't be another way to take the surveillance equipment with him without being detected. He could escape undetected just fine, he was a spectre with a lifetime of espionage experience, but burdened by a clunky collection of wires, antennae, and black boxes he didn't like his odds.

He could leave it behind, but the equipment was expensive and he didn't like the way the keepers he passed had eyed it. If he left it behind now to meet the councilor he was certain it wouldn't be there should he return.

Oh well, it wasn't like the equipment was coming from his pay-check. Unlike the Systems

Alliance the Salarian's didn't force their operatives to buy their own equipment. He still had a good laugh when he remembered Shepard telling him she had to buy her own gear. Honestly how they had lucked into a commander like Shepard was beyond him, she would have made a great Salarian.

Internally sighing he gave the equipment one last look before moving to leave, crawling on all fours to escape the ducts. Hell, maybe the reports wouldn't be completely wrong. Maybe the entire galaxy had just been saved by some omnipotent and hitherto unknown force, powerful beyond even the reapers.

 **AN:**

Feedback is always appreciated. Still thinking of what direction the story will take, let me know if you have thoughts.


	3. Chapter 2

'WE ARE BEYOND YOUR COMPREHENSION'

Not the most original line the Kaildriath knew, but it normally worked well enough. It had never really needed to dedicate much processing power to communicating with organics, not much point when you existed largely to harvest them. It left the catchy sayings and pronouncements of doom to reapers who had been constructed from more social species.

Because each reaper was constituted in part from the purified genetic substrate of a harvested species their personalities tended to match the general demeanour of their formative race. There were limits of course, the reapers were meant to be the sombre protectors of organic life, making the hard decisions no one else could because without them the organics would inevitably destroy themselves. Reapers did not make jokes. This meant that when the occasional jovial and social species ascended to the stars and were promptly harvested the newly spawned reaper had to be occasionally tampered with so that they maintained the proper deportment of a galactic death machine.

Despite this tampering many reapers still tended towards the social side, they couldn't totally eliminate the influence of the biological components without sabotaging their own efforts to preserve the essence of organic life. The Kaildriath dreaded the day it was forced to interact with whatever reaper was formed from the Salarians. The little lizards were all to hyper-active and energetic to possibly make an enjoyable reaper to talk to.

The Kaildriath itself was formed from a species of the first few cycles. It's biological substrate came from the concentrated collected DNA of a quadrupedal species of warrior monks. It's name, Kaildriath, was their word for their most feared deity. The god Kaildriath ruled their afterlife, preserving the souls who had been faithful and strong in life while casting aside the weak or unfaithful. It had chosen the name out of a fatalistic sense of irony. The god Kaildriath was picky about which souls he saved. You had to balance a strictly codified way of martial life while simultaneously setting aside time for the endless rites and ritual retreats demanded by this cruel god. Salvation came from a pure and dedicated soul.

Kaildriath the reaper didn't care an ounce for the moral contents of the souls it helped harvest. An organic could live their life in cold stoicism or indulge in hedonistic opportunity they could find; it really didn't matter in the face of a magneto-hydrodynamic primary cannon.

But the influence of it's ancestry still influenced it. The Kaildriath was cold and uncaring even amongst reapers. It dedicated almost no time to interacting or puppeteering organics. This suited it just fine, but meant that it was little prepared for having to negotiate with this damnable ship that had halted the harvesting of Thessia.

"I don't think you understand what the fucking situation is. I'm a general offensive unit with enough fucking firepower to turn every last one of you reaper shits into fine dust. The mind I've got hidden away in slipspace has enough computing power to make your high and mighty ass seem like a dumb fucking biological. The thing that's _beyond my comprehension_ as you put it is how something claiming to be an AI could be so fucking dumb. I've dealt with smatter infections with more self-preservation instinct than what you're showing"

The original ship, the one who had initially stopped the invasion of Thessia, had left. It hadn't used the mass relay but had simply… vanished. Like it had been too fast for the Reapers senses. That wasn't a comforting thought. Instead the Kaildriath and the invasion force had been introduced to their new caretaker, some ship of similar power who was decidedly less polite.

The Kaildriath had dealt with bravado before, every civilisation in every cycle had its share of idiot heroes who thought they were chosen to stop the harvest. Such heroes didn't last long and their bravado never stood up to the might of a reaper capital ship. Those idiots however didn't happen to be warships whose size and power far eclipsed anything the reapers thought possible.

When the reapers had refused to exit the atmosphere of Thessia per the request of the _Questing for Gravitas_ the choice had been taken from them, they had been lifted out as though by magic. The Kaildriath's internal and external sensors had informed it what was happening. Critical engine and mass effect components were unresponsive, though paradoxically undamaged. This left it incapable of directional flight and would have sent it plummeting towards Thessia's surface were it not for what it was detecting on it's external sensors.

The Kaildriath's external sensors indicating something far stranger, it was being carried. The conclusion its' surface subroutines had come to was that it was encased in some kind of jelly that was being lifted quickly out of the planet's atmosphere, pulling the reaper with it. This sensor reading was corroborated by no visual confirmation, it simply seemed as though the reaper was falling upwards.

While the Kaildriath, and the reaper network more broadly, were desperately speculating on what kind of technology, what kind of civilisation could do this, they had been politely informed that the _Questing for Gravitas_ would be replaced momentarily by something called the _Infinite Tolerance for Impatience,_ a murderer class general offensive unit. Thus they had been left with a distinctly less well mannered ship full of apparently just as much firepower.

'THE HARVEST WILL-'

"Oh shut the fuck up"

The Kaildriath was used to being interrupted when it spoke with non-reaper entities. It wasn't usually a source of concern. Usually it was the one with an unstoppable edge in technology and weaponry.

"Our contact team has us all clued up on your idiot plan. Biologicals and AI's being totally unable to cooperate? What kind of shit is that? I mean sure I can't stand the irritating little flesh bags, if it wouldn't piss off the minds I might be interested in joining your little crusade. But most of the culture minds seem to find them cute or something. From what I hear you've got a first-hand example in your own little neck of the woods. Did you fuck-wits pay any attention to the peace between the Geth and Quarians? Too stuck up your own over-designed angsty ass to check on that?"

When the reapers had been fully lifted from Thessia's atmosphere they finally gained a visual of the ship that had been degrading their mission so caustically.

It was massive.

The Kaildriath's visual runtimes had estimated that it must have been upwards of 60 kilometres in length. A massive silver pen shape whose surface was covered in flitting darting grey indentations and specs. The shape itself seemed to be constantly in flux, never becoming perfectly spherical or smooth. It seemed more a roiling oblong mass than a real physical ship.

"That's right get a nice view of what a real fucking battleship looks like."


End file.
